Parts of Gaza City go dark as fuel runs low

Israel cuts supplies in reply to hostilities that threaten truce

Richard Boudreaux and Rushdi Abu Alouf, Los Angeles Times

Published
4:00 am PST, Friday, November 14, 2008

Palestinians hold candles and placards during a protest against Israeli sanctions, at the main road in Gaza City, Thursday, Nov.13, 2008. Gaza officials shut down their only power plant, cutting off electricity to much of the city of 300,000, after Israel canceled plans to ship in some diesel fuel for the plant as well as 30 trucks full of humanitarian supplies. The Israeli move came after Gaza militants fired at least eight rockets and some mortar shells at Israel on Thursday, according to the Israeli military. Placards read the same in English and in Arabic. (AP Photo/Adel Hana) less

Palestinians hold candles and placards during a protest against Israeli sanctions, at the main road in Gaza City, Thursday, Nov.13, 2008. Gaza officials shut down their only power plant, cutting off ... more

Photo: Adel Hana, AP

Photo: Adel Hana, AP

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Palestinians hold candles and placards during a protest against Israeli sanctions, at the main road in Gaza City, Thursday, Nov.13, 2008. Gaza officials shut down their only power plant, cutting off electricity to much of the city of 300,000, after Israel canceled plans to ship in some diesel fuel for the plant as well as 30 trucks full of humanitarian supplies. The Israeli move came after Gaza militants fired at least eight rockets and some mortar shells at Israel on Thursday, according to the Israeli military. Placards read the same in English and in Arabic. (AP Photo/Adel Hana) less

Palestinians hold candles and placards during a protest against Israeli sanctions, at the main road in Gaza City, Thursday, Nov.13, 2008. Gaza officials shut down their only power plant, cutting off ... more

Photo: Adel Hana, AP

Parts of Gaza City go dark as fuel runs low

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Much of Gaza City fell into darkness Thursday night after an Israeli blockade, tightened in response to Palestinian hostilities, caused the city's electricity plant to run critically low on fuel and shut down.

Israel also barred 30 truckloads of relief supplies from entering the Gaza Strip, leaving a U.N. agency without food supplies for needy families that make up half the Palestinian territory's 1.5 million people.

The partial blackout and the food shortage were the most severe consequences of recent hostilities that have shattered a 5-month-old cease-fire along Israel's border with Gaza. With the cease-fire accord due to expire next month, Israel and Hamas, the Islamic group that governs Gaza, appeared to be bracing for another round of fighting.

Hundreds of Palestinians in Gaza City joined a candlelight march, organized by a Hamas-backed group, to protest what they called an Israeli siege.

"This is a crime against innocent civilians," said Ziad Abu Khousa, 23, who wondered how he and other students at Gaza City's Islamic University could study for midterm exams without lighting at night. "Half the population of Gaza are women and children, and they have nothing to do with the fighting."

Many refugees from the 1948 war over Israel's creation and their descendants live in shantytowns, and nearly all depend on the United Nations for canned meat, flour, sugar, rice and other staples, delivered from Israel.

Neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians have renounced the cease-fire. But Hamas has permitted sporadic rocket fire into Israel, and Israeli forces this month have made two brief pinpoint raids into Gaza, killing 10 militants.

As required by the cease-fire deal, Israel began in June easing a blockade it had imposed last year after Hamas forcibly took control of Gaza from Fatah, a more moderate, U.S.-backed Palestinian group.

But on Nov. 4, after discovering a cross-border tunnel dug by Gaza militants, Israel shut down the commercial crossings where basic goods pass into Gaza. Israeli authorities allowed in a limited amount of fuel Tuesday.

But at midday Thursday, Defense Minister Ehud Barak ordered the border crossings to remain closed. The truck convoy was turned back, spokesman Peter Lerner said, because of "continued rocket fire and security threats at the crossings."

Palestinian militants fired eight rockets and several mortar shells into southern Israel during the day. No one was wounded in the attacks.

Ging said his U.N. agency had distributed the last of its stocks Thursday, leaving it unable to continue the handouts Saturday unless the trucks get through. (The agency does not hand out food on Fridays.) He said the United Nations, which has been distributing food in Gaza for 60 years, had never run out of supplies.

"This is a tragic situation, a man-made crisis," Ging said. "I understand the security challenge at the border, but this challenge has to be overcome. International law requires that civilians in a conflict zone must have access to the goods they need to survive."